A cool algorithm to check a Sudoku field?

Question

Does anyone know a simple algorithm to check if a Sudoku-Configuration is valid? The simplest algorithm I came up with is (for a board of size n) in Pseudocode

for each row
  for each number k in 1..n
    if k is not in the row (using another for-loop)
      return not-a-solution

..do the same for each column

But I'm quite sure there must be a better (in the sense of more elegant) solution. Efficiency is quite unimportant.

Answer 1

Here is what I just did for this:

boolean checkers=true;
String checking="";
    if(a.length/3==1){}
    else{
       for(int l=1; l<a.length/3; l++){
            for(int n=0;n<3*l;n++){
                for(int lm=1; lm<a[n].length/3; lm++){
                    for(int m=0;m<3*l;m++){
                    System.out.print("    "+a[n][m]);
                    if(a[n][m]<=0){
                    System.out.print("        (Values must be positive!)        ");
                    }
                    if(n==0){
                        if(m!=0){
                        checking+=", "+a[n][m];
                    }
                    else{
                        checking+=a[n][m];
                    }
                }
                else{
                    checking+=", "+a[n][m];
                }
            }
                    }
            System.out.print("        "+checking);
            System.out.println();
                }
       }
            for (int i=1;i<=a.length*a[1].length;i++){
        if(checking.contains(Integer.toString(i))){

        }
        else{
            checkers=false;
        }
            }
        }
    checkers=checkCol(a);
    if(checking.contains("-")&&!checking.contains("--")){
        checkers=false;
    }
    System.out.println();
    if(checkers==true){
        System.out.println("This is correct! YAY!");
    }
    else{
        System.out.println("Sorry, it's not right. :-(");
    }
}
private static boolean checkCol(int[][]a){
    boolean checkers=true;
    int[][]col=new int[][]{{0,0,0},{0,0,0},{0,0,0}};
    for(int i=0; i<a.length; i++){
        for(int j=0; j<a[i].length; j++){
            if(a[i][j]>9||a[i][j]<1){
                checkers=false;
                break;
            }
            else{
                col[a[i].length-j][i]=a[i][j];
            }
        }
    }
    String alia="";
    for(int i=0; i<col.length; i++){
        for(int j=1; j<=col[i].length; j++){
            alia=a[i].toString();
            if(alia.contains(""+j)){
                alia=col[i].toString();
                if(alia.contains(""+j)){}
                else{
                    checkers=false;
                }   
            }
            else{
                checkers=false;
            }
        }
    }
    return checkers;
}